May 30, 2024

A report by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) has shown that the Port Harcourt refinery will start petrol production within the next quarter, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, has said.

Lokpobiri stated this on Channels Television’s May 29 Special programme on the first anniversary of President Bola Tinubu.

“They (NNPC) give me reports weekly. The reports I have on my table before I come here is that hydrocarbon has been introduced which means that within the shortest possible time,” the minister said.

“Even when you introduce hydrocarbons, you need to check whether there are leaks. It is a very gigantic facility.

“The report available to me from the NNPC shows that within the next quarter, hydrocarbons will be refined and sold to the public,” he said.

Failed Deadlines
This was not the first time the minister would tell Nigerians the Port Harcourt refinery would come on stream. On the many previously failed deadlines given by the current administration for the operationalisation of the Port Harcourt refinery, the minister said he should not be blamed for the failed deadlines. “I met the rehabilitation works on ground and told Nigerians what I was briefed,” he said.

Last August, shortly after Lokpobiri was sworn in as minister, he pledged that the Port Harcourt refinery would be back on stream by December 2023. In December, the minister announced to Nigerians that the Port Harcourt refinery had “commenced operation after years of underperformance, closure, and turnaround maintenance” but not a drop of refined petroleum product was discharged at the refinery.

In March, NNPCL Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, said the Port Harcourt refinery would commence operations the following month, saying that mechanical works had been completed on the facility which had received over 450,000 barrels of crude.

However, no fuel was refined at the Port Harcourt refinery as well as the other national refineries in Kaduna and Warri, despite billions of naira spent on the rehabilitation of the state-owned refineries.

With the removal of petrol subsidy in his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, the price per litre of petrol rose from N184 to over N600 in most parts of the country.

When operational, the national refineries are expected to cushion the biting effect of the removal of petrol subsidy by the President Bola Tinubu administration on Nigerians.

But despite being Africa’s number one oil producer, Nigeria has relied on imports of petroleum products because of a lack of domestic refining capacity. Fuel shortages are commonplace.